This reminds me of playing with my friends over the phone or on road trips kind of like how you described the Recess D&D or just plain make-believe before that. At its core, we're talking about "rulings, not rules" which generally creates a precedent, which is basically a rule. So you may start with no rules but half the game is then creating them.
Great video. If I remember this video with Ben he was speaking about FKR and he was looking at it from the philosophical position of do you need rules. Later I believe he does admit rules to some extent are needed but questioned if we truly need as many. I looked at this discussion from the position of "How much crunch do you like in your games". If you look at a game like say Pathfinder compared to a game like Quest or the game system from XDM (which I think of as my gauge for the extremes, crunch to quick), are you and your group at the ends or somewhere in the middle? I will have to remember the talking stick game (1d6 for how many sentences you can say before you have to had it back to GM LOL). I am still a huge fan of games like the Screenplay System and others like it. The main thing is to play what you and your group like, if someone likes rules for all events to be written down, ok, if your players trust you to make calls and you are consistent at how you GM that is great too. I do not miss those days where the "standards solicitor" is evoked. Speaking of which I wonder why no one has made a TTRPG around a courtroom and rules lawyers. Solicitor: "Mr. Bear is it true that on October 31 of this year you stole the honey? Mr. Bear: "YES!!!".
I'm 100% with you John on this one. The thing I think that Ben are discussing here is if the "gaps between", the "voids", are a part of the game. He mentioned the Mothership designer as someone who had proposed this. I think the whole idea is ridiculous. He could just have designed a stealth mechanic for Mothership without dice or giving stealth rolls more varied amount of outcomes than just "success or failure". If there is no stealth mechanic in the game as written, then there are no stealth intented in the game. As I described to a close friend of mine: There is a real distinction on how to judge a ttrpg's system between the intented game as written and the game played on the table. If you can run a deep character drama with DnD 5e that's absolutly fine but it's solely part of your game that you are playing on the table and not an argument that DnD 5e are well-suited for running character dramas. (Sorry if my english a bit wonky, cuz I'm no native english speaker or writer).
I will admit that I have a soft spot for theory and academics even if it seems misguided like this. I feel like it's more that people lack the diction to describe devolving a Role Playing Game into just Role Play. Certainly something you can do, but hard to claim its a game at that point. And again, like you point out, even that has some sort of rules even if they are ad-hoc. If I had to guess, people are really asking "can you play a D&D (or other RPG) where the GM determines outcomes without the assistance of any mechanics?" If D&D is a constitutional monarchy, this would be an autocracy. Still a form of government, just structured differently.
I would be interested in the context for that quote. I think is a point in there that does make sense. It's not that gamemaster's do not need any rules, it's that they do not need any rules but those agreed on by the group. I think it speaks more to the DYI spirit of the early hobby. Anyone can make a quite function rpg for their home group. No industry needed and no money for TSR.
Interesting. I've got a train of thought which might be wrong, but hear me out. Perhaps we can have a topic sparked by the question, even if the thoughts below aren't exactly on topic. :) An apple is an apple, so it's an apple - so a game is defined by it's rules, then no rules means no game. By the above, the question "Can you play an RPG without rules?" can't exists. If a question cannot exist, then I presume the questioner haven't meant the question in a way I've preceived it. If the above is true, I'll apporximate the situation from which the question might has come. Let's look at "the new roleplayer" situation, and the case of when that new person is invited rather than wanna be part of an RPG group! This way the new player did not know, haven't researched yet how a game goes on with curiousity, but has friends who try to invite her to the unknown but entertraining pastime. The promise is: It's like an adventure story in an interesting, foreign world, with a main character you'd make and play like a co-writer. Anything is possibble, mot like in a computer game with fixed choices. The truth would be: Okay, so you can't learn 300 pages of _rules_ from the book to next week, so here is a scrap character you haven't connected with, we made for you according to our interests (like a party would do if they had no healer). Okay you cannot even do anything without help because you don't know the aforementioned 300 pages of rules, so we help you do things with the character in a way we know/like how to do. In my way of empathy, that failed promise could spawn The Question of the topic of your video: "You promised me fun and fantasy, and all I've got is someone I don't know, who puppets what all of you are saying. That's not fun. Can we play without that many rules?" My way of answer could be deducted by my previous comments under your videos, but I'm more curious about your answers, esteemed people commenting, and treasured author Mr. Real John Wick. Have a nice day!
An RPG without rules is just a bunch of people sitting around telling a collaborative story with no, as you say, determination of who gets the talking stick. There's no way to settle disputes about what happens next when there's a lack of agreement.That's not a game by any definition. At most, you might say "we're telling a collaborative story within the D&D setting Forgotten Realms", and at least someone would know the flavor. But even then, isn't "within the setting" technically a rule, which constrains the "players"?
Questing Beast dropped the ball there somewhat, I think the interesting part only happens later in the ful video when he mentioned the fruitful void, which I think might also have been originated from The Forge. There he presented the idea that not everything needs to have rules and some times in those spaces between clear rules interesting stuff can happen. After all, the point was about one of the public DMs who runs the game rather narratively driven but still uses D&D as foundation. Anyway, I still disagree with him there, since I think the very framework of D&D is bad. Since I despise the paradigm of the competency focused play in the hobby, where everything is about what characters can do ad too rarely about who the character is.
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This reminds me of playing with my friends over the phone or on road trips kind of like how you described the Recess D&D or just plain make-believe before that. At its core, we're talking about "rulings, not rules" which generally creates a precedent, which is basically a rule. So you may start with no rules but half the game is then creating them.
Great video.
If I remember this video with Ben he was speaking about FKR and he was looking at it from the philosophical position of do you need rules. Later I believe he does admit rules to some extent are needed but questioned if we truly need as many. I looked at this discussion from the position of "How much crunch do you like in your games". If you look at a game like say Pathfinder compared to a game like Quest or the game system from XDM (which I think of as my gauge for the extremes, crunch to quick), are you and your group at the ends or somewhere in the middle? I will have to remember the talking stick game (1d6 for how many sentences you can say before you have to had it back to GM LOL). I am still a huge fan of games like the Screenplay System and others like it. The main thing is to play what you and your group like, if someone likes rules for all events to be written down, ok, if your players trust you to make calls and you are consistent at how you GM that is great too. I do not miss those days where the "standards solicitor" is evoked. Speaking of which I wonder why no one has made a TTRPG around a courtroom and rules lawyers. Solicitor: "Mr. Bear is it true that on October 31 of this year you stole the honey? Mr. Bear: "YES!!!".
I'm 100% with you John on this one.
The thing I think that Ben are discussing here is if the "gaps between", the "voids", are a part of the game.
He mentioned the Mothership designer as someone who had proposed this.
I think the whole idea is ridiculous.
He could just have designed a stealth mechanic for Mothership without dice or giving stealth rolls more varied amount of outcomes than just "success or failure".
If there is no stealth mechanic in the game as written, then there are no stealth intented in the game.
As I described to a close friend of mine:
There is a real distinction on how to judge a ttrpg's system between the intented game as written and the game played on the table.
If you can run a deep character drama with DnD 5e that's absolutly fine but it's solely part of your game that you are playing on the table and not an argument that DnD 5e are well-suited for running character dramas.
(Sorry if my english a bit wonky, cuz I'm no native english speaker or writer).
A game without rules is just life.
Indeed.
I will admit that I have a soft spot for theory and academics even if it seems misguided like this.
I feel like it's more that people lack the diction to describe devolving a Role Playing Game into just Role Play. Certainly something you can do, but hard to claim its a game at that point. And again, like you point out, even that has some sort of rules even if they are ad-hoc.
If I had to guess, people are really asking "can you play a D&D (or other RPG) where the GM determines outcomes without the assistance of any mechanics?" If D&D is a constitutional monarchy, this would be an autocracy. Still a form of government, just structured differently.
I would be interested in the context for that quote. I think is a point in there that does make sense. It's not that gamemaster's do not need any rules, it's that they do not need any rules but those agreed on by the group. I think it speaks more to the DYI spirit of the early hobby. Anyone can make a quite function rpg for their home group. No industry needed and no money for TSR.
I agree. It seems like the more accurate way to get the meaning across is: "...is that they don't need any (of our) rules."
Interesting. I've got a train of thought which might be wrong, but hear me out.
Perhaps we can have a topic sparked by the question, even if the thoughts below aren't exactly on topic. :)
An apple is an apple, so it's an apple - so a game is defined by it's rules, then no rules means no game.
By the above, the question "Can you play an RPG without rules?" can't exists.
If a question cannot exist, then I presume the questioner haven't meant the question in a way I've preceived it.
If the above is true, I'll apporximate the situation from which the question might has come.
Let's look at "the new roleplayer" situation, and the case of when that new person is invited rather than wanna be part of an RPG group!
This way the new player did not know, haven't researched yet how a game goes on with curiousity, but has friends who try to invite her to the unknown but entertraining pastime.
The promise is:
It's like an adventure story in an interesting, foreign world, with a main character you'd make and play like a co-writer.
Anything is possibble, mot like in a computer game with fixed choices.
The truth would be:
Okay, so you can't learn 300 pages of _rules_ from the book to next week, so here is a scrap character you haven't connected with, we made for you according to our interests (like a party would do if they had no healer).
Okay you cannot even do anything without help because you don't know the aforementioned 300 pages of rules, so we help you do things with the character in a way we know/like how to do.
In my way of empathy, that failed promise could spawn The Question of the topic of your video:
"You promised me fun and fantasy, and all I've got is someone I don't know, who puppets what all of you are saying.
That's not fun. Can we play without that many rules?"
My way of answer could be deducted by my previous comments under your videos, but I'm more curious about your answers, esteemed people commenting, and treasured author Mr. Real John Wick.
Have a nice day!
Even Calvin Ball has a rule!
I totally, I came up to the same conclusions.
In my opinion a game without rules is improv.
An RPG without rules is just a bunch of people sitting around telling a collaborative story with no, as you say, determination of who gets the talking stick. There's no way to settle disputes about what happens next when there's a lack of agreement.That's not a game by any definition. At most, you might say "we're telling a collaborative story within the D&D setting Forgotten Realms", and at least someone would know the flavor. But even then, isn't "within the setting" technically a rule, which constrains the "players"?
Questing Beast dropped the ball there somewhat, I think the interesting part only happens later in the ful video when he mentioned the fruitful void, which I think might also have been originated from The Forge. There he presented the idea that not everything needs to have rules and some times in those spaces between clear rules interesting stuff can happen. After all, the point was about one of the public DMs who runs the game rather narratively driven but still uses D&D as foundation. Anyway, I still disagree with him there, since I think the very framework of D&D is bad. Since I despise the paradigm of the competency focused play in the hobby, where everything is about what characters can do ad too rarely about who the character is.